Connecting to Benchtop and Modular Instruments with LabVIEW NXG

Overview

LabVIEW NXG simplifies hardware integration so that you can rapidly acquire and visualize data sets from virtually any I/O device, whether by NI or a third-party. Combined with a graphical programming syntax that reduces programming time, LabVIEW NXG streamlines complex
system design with tools and IP at the forefront of today’s technology. This document shows how to connect to third-party benchtop and modular instruments in LabVIEW NXG.

Table of Contents

1. Third-Party Instruments

A benchtop full of different third-party instruments is not an uncommon sight to see in the engineering and science world. These instruments play a vital role in taking the required measurements for your test system, but setting up these instruments in a combined system is always a struggle because of the different vendor-specific software that’s used, the multiple busses the instruments communicate on, and the extra work it takes to integrate them all. The ever-increasing pace of electronic innovation means the time available to perform verification and validation tests is even more limited. LabVIEW NXG reduces system complexity with one piece of software that can acquire data from thousands of third-party benchtop instruments over any bus such as USB, Ethernet, Serial, and GPIB with hundreds of plug-and-play instrument drivers that typically include APIs, example programs, and documentation.

2. Software-Defined Modular Instruments

More and more capability of hardware is being moved to the software domain. To keep pace with the innovation of your smart device, you need extreme flexibility in the software or your instrumentation and test system. The traditional rack-and-stack box instruments or turnkey automated test equipment (ATE) systems struggle to keep up with the rapidly changing requirements of smart devices.

Take, for example, new digital pre-distortion techniques in RF amplifier technology. To effectively model and test those algorithms, your instrumentation needs to be open and modifiable through easy-to-understand software. The intellectual property that makes the instrument successfully test a power amplifier may have nothing to do with the instrument, but it clearly needs to work optimally with the instrument. LabVIEW NXG with modular software-defined PXI instruments makes this not only possible but also easily done with the right domain expertise on your smart device.

Figure 2. Using LabVIEW NXG with a modular NI PXI Oscilloscope to take single-record acquisitions.